If you're looking for a Speartuna Fin in Monster Hunter Wilds, chances are you reached a point in High Rank where you've scrolled down the blacksmith weapon tree to find the Frozen Speartuna—a frozen swordfish (or marlin, maybe?) that you can swing like a Great Sword. If you're anything like me, you immediately decided it was something you needed to craft.
To craft the swordfish sword, however, you'll need a Speartuna Fin—and then you'll need five more if you want to fully upgrade the weapon. As you might have guessed, you'll need to do some fishing, but the Speartuna can be a surprisingly elusive fish to track down. Here's how to reliably find a Speartuna Fin in Monster Hunter Wilds without spending hours checking every fishing hole.
Monster Hunter Wilds Speartuna Fin location
There's no way around it: To get a Speartuna Fin, you'll need to fish for a Speartuna. While most of the materials for the Frozen Speartuna weapon can be found in the Iceshard Cliffs, you'll need to do your angling elsewhere: The Speartuna can only be caught in the Scarlet Forest.
Speartuna appear most often in the Fallow season, so you'll want to use the rest feature in your tent to change to Fallow if it's not already active. Once that's done, you'll want to head to Scarlet Forest Area 17. It's the area with the large lake reservoir on the highest vertical level of the map, where you can pull down ship wreckage during fights with Uth Duna.
Once there, head to the waterline. In my experience, it can sometimes take a moment for fish to populate in the area, but the Speartuna is fairly easy to recognize: It's a large fish with a sail-like fin on its back. Sometimes schools of small fish in the area will trigger a feeding frenzy, splashing up water and attracting Harpios wingdrakes to fish. If you see these, make sure to check for Speartuna in the feeding frenzy; they can sometimes spawn two at a time while they're active.
If you do a sweep of the waterline and don't see any Speartuna, you'll want to head to a pop-up camp and reset the area by resting to Fallow again. Luckily there's a pop-up campsite right nearby at Area 17: Great Lake Shore Campsite. If you're trying to fully upgrade the Frozen Speartuna, it's worth setting down a camp there if you haven't already, because catching a Speartuna isn't as simple as finding one.
How to catch Speartuna in Monster Hunter Wilds
Unlike the many fish you can catch with a simple push of a right trigger, the Speartuna is a "whopper"—a class of large fish in Monster Hunter Wilds that has a minigame you have to beat to catch it.
First, though, you'll have to hook the Speartuna with your fishing rod. This can be frustrating on its own, because in my experience, Speartuna tend to ignore your lure. To speed things along it's worth doing the fishing sidequests from Kanya at the Scarlet Forest base camp. Her fourth quest, The Catch of a Lifetime!, will provide you with two fishing baits that attract whoppers. The Duster Rig bait won't help us here, but Speartuna are attracted to the Tuff Joint Bait.
Once you've attached Tuff Joint Bait, cast your lure and pray. Sometimes it can help catch the Speartuna's attention if you slowly reel in your lure by steadily alternating up and down on the left analog stick, but you might need to cast your line a few times.
Once the Speartuna bites, press RT to hook the fish and initiate the whopper fishing minigame. Your goal here is to avoid building too much tension on your fishing line, which will cause the line to break and you'll lose your fish. The whopper will swim back and forth as it struggles against your line; as it does, move your left analog stick in the direction the fish is swimming to avoid building line tension.
Some whoppers will also leap while they're on the line, and unfortunately the Speartuna loves to leap. When the Speartuna leaps, move the left analog stick in the direction it's leaping and then press RT to restrain the fish.
The timing is tricky here, but you'll know you've succeeded if your hunter maintains their stance. If your hunter stumbles forward and your controller vibrates, you didn't nail it, and you've added tension to the line.
After a certain amount of struggling the Speartuna will tire out, giving you a window where you can reel it in. When it stops swimming, rapidly alternate between up and down on the left analog stick to reel as fast as you can. You're unlikely to fully reel it in in one go, so expect to do multiple rounds of this minigame for each Speartuna.
There's a lot of trial and error involved in whopper fishing, so be prepared for a few broken lines. As mentioned above, any controller vibration while trying to catch a whopper is a bad sign. If you get the vibration to stop, however, you're doing something right.
With some luck and perseverance, you'll hopefully bag your first Speartuna, providing you with a Speartuna Fin. Congratulations! Only five more to go until you can craft Wilds' fishiest sword.
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